Absorb's E-Commerce module provides Admins with a Transactions tool. With it Admins can produce reports in order to analyze and understand the financial purchases made from the training items in their LMS inventory, examine individual Transaction Details, or reproduce / reprint Transaction Receipts.
Beyond its reporting capabilities, the tool is also used to approve or decline LMS purchases that have been made via any deferred method of payment that requires the manual processing of the Transaction, as well as to log any purchase Refunds that have been processed.
Overview
While not every enterprise will use Absorb's E-Commerce functionality to sell their LMS inventory for financial gain, for the organizations that do it is imperative that those Absorb Admins have both accurate and in-depth reporting capabilities. This is owing to the fact that external Payment Gateways used to process credit card Transactions only provide a fixed amount of information on the Transactions that Gateway customers have made, and because Absorb is configurable to accept other forms of payment as well.
The Transactions tool provides Admins with a substantial amount of business data that they can examine and utilize to better manage how they package, promote and sell both their current and future LMS offerings. This tool also allows Admins to audit and maintain every day administrative needs with a high degree of financial oversight over their entire Absorb E-Commerce enterprise.
View
Unique to the Transactions tool is the fact that you are not really adding or editing any LMS items (other than when you are processing a Refund or approving a purchase). Instead the primary purpose of this area in Absorb is to allow you to view E-Commerce Transaction information. Because of that key difference, it makes the various Actions available here, the first thing to be determined.
Actions
When working with Transactions the initial Actions available for use by the Admin are:
| Element | Description |
| Details | This button will launch the Transaction Details Summary which provides a breakdown of the Transaction Information, Billing Address, Billing Information, Item Information and Cost. If the Admin needs to access a copy of the Transaction Receipt it can be selected on the Transaction Reports page, but also right here. |
| Receipt | This button will launch the Transaction Receipt which provides a copy of the Receipt generated by the LMS (automatically opened in a new browser window) that was provided to the Learner upon the successful completion of their purchase. If the Admin needs to print a copy of the Transaction Receipt they can do so once this page is opened. |
| Mark Refunded | This button will mark the transaction as Refunded. |
| Approve* | This button will approve a pending transaction. |
| Decline* | This button will approve a pending transaction. |
| Deselect | This button will clear any Transaction selection made by the Admin in the Transaction Report. |
| Cancel** | This button will cancel the Transaction Details Summary and return the Admin back to the Transaction Report page. |
| Print*** | This button, when launched from the Transaction Receipt, will open your Print dialog in the web browser that you use to run Absorb on your computing device. |
* Action option available after a Transaction Pending Approval has been selected.
** Action option available after the Transaction Details Summary has been selected.
*** Action option available after the Transaction Receipt has been selected.
The Transaction Details Summary is used by the Admin to review the pertinent details of the selected LMS purchase.
| Element | Description |
| Transaction Information | This is the section of the Summary that displays the Transaction ID and Transaction Date of the LMS purchase. |
| Billing Address | Refer to the definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
| Billing Information | This is the section of the Summary that displays the Reference Number added by the Learner to record the billing 'destination' of their LMS purchase. If a credit card is being used as the Payment Method for the LMS purchase this heading will be displayed, but the field underneath it will not be included. |
| Item | This is the section of the Summary that displays the Course Title, the Quantity purchased, the Price per Item and the Sub Total (denominated in the LMS's default currency) for the entire purchase Transaction, before Tax. If there are multiple Item purchases included in the Transaction each one will be listed on a separate line in this section. |
| Cost | This is the section of the Summary that displays the Sub-Total and Total Amount for the LMS purchase of all the goods listed in the Item section directly above. |
The Transaction Receipt is used by the Admin to document evidence of a particular LMS purchase selected from the Transaction Report. The Receipt is divided into two sections - the Order Receipt and the Shopping Cart Items.
Order Receipt
| Element | Description |
| Order Date | Refer to the Transaction Date definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
| Purchase By/Billing Info | This is the Billing First Name, Billing Last Name, Billing Address and Billing Email Address of the Learner making the LMS purchase. |
| Purchase For/Shipping Info | This is the full name, address and email box of the recipient of the LMS purchase. Since no physical goods are being shipped this field will almost always reflect only the Billing First Name, Billing Last Name (no Billing Address if it is the same) and the Billing Email Address information displayed in the field directly above. |
| Payment Method§ | Refer to the Payment Method definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
| Credit Card Type§ | Refer to the Card Type definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
| Credit Card Number§ | Refer to the Card Number definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
| Payment Reference Number§ | Refer to the Reference Number definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
Shopping Cart Items
| Element | Description |
| Course Title | This is the Name as entered in Absorb by the Admin of the LMS item being purchased by the Learner. |
| Quantity | This is the number of units of the Course Title that are being purchased by the Learner in the Transaction. |
| Price / Item | This is the individual unit price for each of the quantities of the particular Course Title being purchased by the Learner. |
| Subtotal | Refer to the definition in the Transaction Report section below. |
| Total | Refer to the definition in the Transaction Report section below. Be advised that this label appears twice in this section of the Receipt - once as the total price for a given Course Title in the Receipt (i.e. Quantity x Price / Item) and then a second time as the final total for the entire LMS purchase being transacted. |
Report
Absorb's Transactions tool will launch using the standard Report layout as its starting point where an Admin can: open a Transaction Details Summary, generate a Transaction Receipt, approve a Transaction, mark a Transaction as Refunded or, run a custom Transaction Report.
The Transaction Report can be customized to provide data on any of the following parameters:
| Element | Description |
| Billing Address | This column displays the billing location of the Learner that made the LMS purchase. |
| Billing Email Address | This column displays the email address of the Learner that was billed for the LMS purchase. |
| Billing First Name | This column displays the first name of the Learner that was billed for the LMS purchase. |
| Billing Last Name | This column displays the last name of the Learner that was billed for the LMS purchase |
| Card (Last 4 Digits) | This column displays the last four digits of the credit card used to complete the LMS purchase if this method of payment was used. |
| Card Type | This column displays the brand of credit card used to complete the LMS purchase if this method of payment was used. |
| Cart Item | This column displays the purchased course name, or Multiple if multiple courses were purchased. |
| Country Tax | This column displays the numerical value of the national taxation levy applied to the LMS purchase. |
| Tax for Country | This column displays the label for the national taxation levy applied to the LMS purchase as chosen by the Admin during the configuration of their E-Commerce portal. |
| Coupon Code | This column displays the coupon code that the Learner used during the Transaction to discount the LMS purchase. |
| Discount | This column displays the reduction in cost, denominated in the LMS's default currency, that was deducted from the LMS purchase price. |
| Gateway Message | This column displays the returning message generated by the organization's Payment Gateway in the case of a credit card purchase, designating whether the Transaction was approved, denied, pending, invalid, etc. |
| Gateway Message Code | This column displays the numerical identifier assigned to the returning message generated by the Payment Gateway directly above if a credit card was used as the payment method. |
| Gateway Result | This column displays the authentication code generated by the Payment Gateway if a credit card was used as the payment method. |
| Gateway Transaction Completed | This column displays the time at which the transaction (payment) was completed through the payment gateway, and will be in the timezone reported by your gateway when the purchase was made by a credit card through the payment gateway. (Note: Time zones may vary between gateways.) |
| ID | This column displays the unique identifier generated by Absorb to distinguish this Transaction from others completed in the Admin's LMS. |
| Learner Department | This column displays the Department of the Learner that will be completing the Course. |
| Learner Email | This column displays the email of the Learner that will be completing the Course. |
| Learner First Name | This column displays the first name of the Learner that will be completing the Course. |
| Learner Last Name | This column displays the last name of the Learner that will be completing the Course. |
| New User | This column displays the binary answer of whether or not the Learner making the purchase became a new user of the LMS on the basis this Transaction. |
| Payment Method | This column displays the type of financial disbursement used by the Learner to make their LMS purchase. |
| Province Tax | This column displays the numerical value of the regional taxation levy applied to the LMS purchase. |
| Tax for Province | This column displays the label for the regional taxation levy applied to the LMS purchase as chosen by the Admin during the configuration of their E-Commerce portal. |
| Reference Number | This column displays the Learner-defined label given to a non-credit card Transaction so that it can be properly processed for payment (e.g. Check Number, Wire Transfer Number or Purchase Order Number). |
| Refund Date | This column displays the date that the purchase was designated as having been Refunded in the LMS. |
| Refunded | This column displays the binary answer of whether or not the purchase has been Refunded in the LMS. |
| Status | This column displays the Transaction result in the LMS. In the case of a credit card or PayPal purchase this column will display the information based on the Gateway Message above that was generated during the purchase. However, in the case of payment made with any other payment means that requires approval of the Admin's Accounting department before this will shown as Pending Approval until the Admin elects to authorize or deny the Transaction. |
| Total Discount | This column displays the total Coupon discount that was applied to the transaction. |
| Transaction Sub Total | This column displays the Transaction's total purchase amount less any Coupon discount but before any taxation is applied. |
| Transaction Total | This column displays the Transaction's final purchase amount less any Coupon discount but including any applicable taxation. |
| Transaction Date | This column displays the date and time that the Learner added items to the Shopping Cart. This action will be tracked and will contain information based on the status of the purchase / progress in the eCommerce process. |
| Transaction ID | This column displays the unique numerical identifier generated by the Payment Gateway to distinguish an individual Transaction from others made in the Payment Gateway by the entire collection of the merchants using that particular E-Commerce service. |